


The Clockwork Soldier

by skatzaa



Series: Captain Carter and The Clockwork Soldier [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Airship Captain Peggy Carter, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Alternate Universe - Western, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, F/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-13 05:27:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19244746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skatzaa/pseuds/skatzaa
Summary: Natasha continues, “We don’t know who he’s working for, but he’s deadly and his employer must have deep pockets.” A breath. “They’ve been calling him the Clockwork Soldier, because his left arm’s been enhanced or replaced, we’re not sure.”





	The Clockwork Soldier

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Entwinedlove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Entwinedlove/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Art for The Clockwork Soldier](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19286917) by [Entwinedlove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Entwinedlove/pseuds/Entwinedlove). 



> A collaboration for the Cap Reverse Big Bang 2019! Entwinedlove, you were incredible to work with and I really appreciate your patience with this. [The art](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19286917/chapters/45871516) is incredible, and y'all should absolutely go check it out and leave some love!
> 
> A big thanks to my girlfriend as well, who not only beta read this for me even though she isn't into fandom, but also didn't get mad when she came across a scene I lifted pretty much exactly from our relationship.
> 
> This isn't a fic that looks social issues during this era in the face, but it also doesn't cross the street when they pass by. Please keep that in mind, and feel free to shoot me a message on tumblr (I'm skatzaa there too), if you're worried about anything or feel there's something I could've handled better. I'm always looking to grow as a writer and a person.

 

 

 

The airship is burning around her. She doesn’t need to look up to know the balloon has been punctured; they’re falling so fast it can be the only explanation. Even Dernier’s magic can only keep them afloat for so long. That is, if the fire doesn’t get them first.

They’re going to crash, and the only thing Peggy can do is hold the wheel as steady as she can as they go down. She can’t take even one hand off for fear of sending them careening off in one direction. Her goggles are already down, but there’s nothing to protect her lungs from the smoke she’s breathing even now.

It’s not the desert she tells herself. At least they made it to the mountains before the _Red Skull_ and her crew caught up to them. At least in the mountains, they can out maneuver the gigantic warship.

Down on the deck, Jones and Dugan haul in the slack on a rope and tie it down, trying their best to keep the ship from falling apart before they can crash. Last she saw, Morita was at the bow, but the smoke’s gotten bad enough that she can’t see that far anymore. The rest of the crew is below deck, and she can only hope that Barnes gets them out before something collapses and they’re trapped down there.

The _Marvel_ shudders as its balloon catches on a rogue gust of wind. The wheel wrenches itself from her grasp and the whole ship lurches as it spins wildly. Peggy’s legs get caught in her dress when she tries to steady herself and she lands hard on the deck. Damn all this extra fabric. There’s no breath in her lungs—she wheezes and gets a mouthful of smoke for her trouble. She coughs. Peggy pushes herself up to her elbows and looks desperately at the wheel. No one’s grabbed it, so it’s still spinning as the wind drags the ship as it wishes.

The ship tilts dangerously.

Peggy scrabbles at the deck but there’s no handhold, and she starts to slide. There’s the railing behind her, then just open space. She doesn’t trust the railing to hold for long after she slams into it.

“Captain!”

A hand closes over hers.

She looks up into the face of Barnes. He has one arm outstretched to catch her, the other wrapped up in a rope that must’ve broken free from the balloon. He grunts as he pulls her to her feet on the slanting deck.

“The wheel,” he says, jerking his head.

Peggy nods, freeing her hand so she can touch his shoulders, his sides, his chest—seeking out any injury his clothes might hide.

“The wheel!” he repeats. The rope is cutting off circulation to his fingers; they’re turning purple at the tips.

But this isn’t just about him. Peggy stumbles across the deck and wrestles with the wheel until the _Marvel_ stops tilting. But try as she might, she can’t right the ship.

Morita appears out of the smoke, clinging to the rail that divides the aftdeck from the rest of the ship.

“Captain!” he cries. “We’re gonna scrape the hull!”

A deep groaning sound claws its way through the ship. They’ve dropped too low, they’re dragging along one of the mountains. Peggy looks to the right and sees trees, so close she could count the branches if she wanted.

She doesn’t want to.

Peggy lets go of the wheel again, and the ship drags left, away from the mountain. She has to grab it again quickly to keep them from veering into the cliff on the other side of them.

The mountains might save them from the _Red Skull_ , but that’s only if they don’t kill them first.

“Peggy!”

She jerks around at the sound of James’ voice and sees:

Morita with his midsection pressed against the rail, his hands clutching a broken end of rope—

The tilting deck, reaching a deadly angle—

James hanging on to a stretch of rope—

His feet slipping on the deck—

The rope snaps.

Peggy lunges for him but he’s too far away. She can’t reach him.

His eyes jerk up and meet hers. They’re wide and blue and _afraid_.

She can’t risk the rest of the crew dying just for the chance to save him. He would hate that.

Peggy grips the wheel once more, pushing with all her might against the drag of it. The ship steadies and begins to right itself.

She keeps her eyes on him, and for a moment, it seems like he’s caught his balance.

And then there’s a smell in the air, even over the burning of the ship, like a gun that’s just been fired.

The world explodes.

   

*

   

Someone is touching her—a hand on her shoulder, her bicep. Without opening her eyes, Peggy grumbles and swats at them. She stayed up far too late the night before to deal with anything other than an attack. Even an airship’s captain deserves sleep, goddamnit.

The hand withdraws. Peggy sighs and rolls onto her side, curling one hand beneath the thin pillow. Sleep. She’ll sleep now, and deal with whatever it is later.

Time passes as she teeters on the edge of true sleep, though how much time she doesn’t know. The world is gray and shapeless around her, she’s warm in her bed, and though she isn’t fully asleep, she’s comfortable enough. That, in Peggy’s mind, matters more than anything else in that moment.

Something wet on her shoulder, sliding down onto the skin of her bare breast. Another droplet. Peggy’s mind, dragged down by exhaustion as it was, takes a moment to process it. Water? Not likely in the captain’s quarters, not even during the worst of the thunderstorms they’ve flown through. Then what–?

Someone sucks in a choking, sobbing breath, trying, most likely, to remain quiet.

_James._

Peggy rolls onto her back, eyes opening, and takes in the sight of James leaning over her, face screwed up in the hope of stopping any more tears from falling.

“Oh, darling,” she says, reaching up. He comes willingly, face tucked into the crook between her neck and shoulder, body carefully positioned so as not to put too much of his weight on her. Peggy can handle the weight, of course, but it isn’t the time to argue the point. “I’m sorry. Was it a dream?”

James nods against her collarbone. There are tears pooling in the hollow there. He takes another desperate breath as Peggy runs her hand up and down the length of his spine. His skin burns to the touch, a remnant of whatever nightmare had held him in its thrall. She won’t ask, because he never likes to talk about the dreams after the fact.

Stupid, selfish woman, she chastised herself. If only she had woken when he first tried, perhaps they could have avoided this.

“It’s okay,” she tells him, voice as low and soothing as she can manage.

She continues to stroke her hand along the length of his back, kneading the tense muscles as best she can with the position they’re in. With glacial slowness, James begins to relax, allowing Peggy to take more and more of his weight as he lets go of the tension leftover from the dream. His hair, still in its sleep braid, slides across the broad stretch of his shoulders and comes to rest against Peggy’s neck.

Based on the light, they have at least most of an hour before she’s expected to be up. Peggy will let him rest against her until then, and hope it will be enough.

 

* * *

 

Peggy wakes.

The ship is quiet around her in the way only an airship can be, not silent but so full of little noises from the engine and the crew and the ship herself that it all fades to a dull hum.

She stares up at the ceiling of her cabin and breathes steadily until the tears no longer threaten to overflow. She doesn’t know which dream is worse, if they can even be called separate dreams this point, so twisted up in one another that one never comes without the other following. She doesn’t know which is worse, because they aren’t just dreams, they’re memories.

It’s been seven years; she thinks it would be easier to relive James’ death if she wasn’t also reminded of how much she loved him each time.

A knock at the door.

Peggy pushes the last clinging remnants of the dreams away and sits up, tugging on the collar of her sleep shirt so it’s not folded awkwardly against her collarbone. She says, “Come in.”

She’s already out of bed and tackling the snarls in her hair when the door is pushed open and Morita steps inside.

“Captain,” he says in greeting. “We’re an hour out from port.”

She nods to him and says, “Thank you, Mr. Morita. I’ll be above deck in just a moment.”

He leaves, closing the door behind him. Peggy stares at the wood for a moment and then sighs. She prefers pants when she’s flying, but port means impressing important people, and that means playing the part. Which includes dresses.

Los Angeles.

She loathes the city, and not least because of its mayor. Alexander Pierce is a two-faced bastard, even if he’s never done anything illegal—that can be proved. She knows he’ll be there to greet them when the _Marvelous_ docks, because they’re carrying his cargo.

Peggy pulls on her vest and is just finished buttoning it when she emerges above deck. Her crew is scattered. Dernier and Jones are in the hold, probably, ready to ensure the landing goes smoothly. Falsworth is at the bow, leaning casually against the railing; he gives her a jaunty salute that would have most soldiers rolling in their graves if they saw it. Peggy climbs to the aftdeck where she finds Dugan, who’s oiling a gun, and Morita, his hands on the wheel.

When Morita sees Peggy, he stands aside to let her take over. He makes a damn fine navigator and helmsman, but Peggy always prefers to steer them into a port herself. She settles herself behind it’s bulk, then pulls her goggles down out of her hair. It’s likely she won’t need them for this short of a flight, but better safe than sorry.

“Bet you’re regretting taking that contract right about now, Cap,” Dugan says, not taking his eyes off the complicated gears of his weapon. He’s the only one on deck without goggles, only his bowler hat pulled low over his brow for protection. On another crew, to another captain, that might be considered disrespectful, but she and Dugan have had an understanding ever since she dragged him out of that dying mining town a decade ago. From him, it’s just small talk.

And anyway, he’s right.

“Mayor Pierce always pays well,” she says noncommittally. Dugan glances up and raises a disbelieving eyebrow. His ability to read her like an open book is one of the many traits that makes him a good first mate. Peggy caves. “Alright. Howard Stark pays well. Pierce’s payments are just a nice bonus.”

Stark only pays so well because he’s a paranoid bastard who’s gotten it into his head that only Captain Carter and the _Marvelous_ can be trusted to transport his latest inventions across half the damn known world. Not that she minds the jobs or the money. It’s just the desert that makes her uncomfortable.

The last leg of the trip passes quietly, for which the entire crew is thankful. It’s not common for pirates and other rogue airships to attack cargo ships—though the _Marvelous_ is certainly more than just a cargo ship—this close to a city’s defended airspace, but it’s not unheard of either. And the _Marvelous_ , with her brightly striped balloon that many consider to be a relic of the past, makes for a tempting target.

Of course, most ships that attack the _Marvelous_ soon find out why she’s survived so long with an outdated balloon and a crew of six.

At the bow, Falsworth whistles the _all clear_ signal, followed by _port sighted._ He snaps his telescope closed.

Peggy pulls one of the levers set into the center of the wheel. It’ll notify Jones and Dernier to begin the descent procedures.

Slowly but surely, the teeming, sprawling mass of Los Angeles unfolds across the horizon. A hint of blue-gray-green on the horizon is the only sign of the Pacific.

Peggy tightens her grip on the spokes of the wheel. It’s a city of fifty-thousand souls and all of them, it seems, are looking out only for themselves.

Well. She’s always been one for a challenge.

   

*

   

There’s an airship lurking like a monster in the Los Angeles skyport. It makes the _Marvelous_ look like a toy. Peggy can hardly take her eyes off of it as she and Dugan descend the gangplank to the hard packed dirt of the port.

“Captain Carter.” Alexander Pierce steps away from the group of undoubtedly important people clumped together in the shade of the hulking creation, hands clasped behind his back. The Pierce family is old East Coast money, and Alexander Pierce is a shining example of those rigid traditional views; he can get away with it too, because the Governor recruited him specifically to whip the county into shape.

She feels his eyes linger on the hem of her skirt—short by the standards of polite society but still only hitting the middle of her shin—and the goggles nestled in hair she didn’t bother to fix after flying into the wind for an hour. She is decidedly _not_ what a lady should be according to Pierce, and his quick once-over makes that quite clear.

Peggy dips into a shallow curtsey.

“Mayor Pierce, it’s an honor,” she says. It takes a lot of effort to draw her eyes from the airship—if something that large can even truly be called an airship—and when she does, it’s to the sight of Pierce smiling slightly at her.

“Like what you see?” he asks. “The _Triskelion_ is the result of the greatest minds on the continent, including your friend, Howard Stark.”

She can believe that. Stark has been working on improving airship technology for as long as she’d known him; he was the one who replaced balloons with hydrogyre engines, and now, apparently, with… _this._

Metal sails.

Peggy spots the tell tale shape of the hydrogyres at the ship’s stern, but she’s never seen them with _metal_ sails before.

She gives Pierce a polite smile. “May I ask, Mayor Pierce, what the purpose of the sails are?”

He glances over his shoulder and back to her, a dismissive gesture that says, _oh, those?_

“I admit I don’t fully understand the science of it,” Pierce says with gentle self-deprecation that Peggy doesn’t believe for a moment. He tucks his hands into his waistcoat pockets to complete the image of the genial old man. “But the way it’s been explained to me is that the hydrogyre engines have been connected to the sails, which generate electricity. This extra power greatly increases the speed of the ship.”

He knows more than he’s saying. It wouldn’t do to give away information if you’re the only one who has it.

Dugan shifts behind her. He’s uneasy too, but he’ll keep it to himself until they’re among friends.

She almost asks what it’s to be used for, but bites her tongue. There’s no need to be sloppy.

“It sounds quite interesting,” Peggy says, “I look forward to learning more about it as the technology becomes available to the public.”

Pierce is good; his expression barely changes. But Peggy catches the way his smile goes from mostly genuine to frozen.

Ah. He doesn’t plan on sharing, then.

“Now,” she says, before he has a chance to respond. “With your permission, my crew is ready to unload the cargo. Perhaps they can do so while we work out the final details of payment.”

Looking far less pleased than he had when she arrived, Pierce nods and gestures her away.

Peggy glances over her shoulder and meets Dugan’s eye. He dips his chin once.

Satisfied that Dugan will keep the peace, in whatever way that might require, Peggy allows Pierce to lead the way.

   

*

   

The city has changed again.

Peggy moves through the bustling streets of the south district, slapping away hands of pickpockets and gropers as needed. It’s been less than a year since she was last in the city, but she can hardly recognize most of the storefronts here. The smell and the sounds, however, are just the same as they always are, grease and smoke and _humanity_ overlaid with everyone talking as loudly as possible to be heard above everyone else.

And the clothes. The fashion is wildly different, and the most notable change is the addition of little gears decorating anything and everything they’ll stick to. Pierce hadn’t subscribed to it, but even some of his retinue had worn hats or held canes adorned with delicate gears made of bronze or, if they really wanted to show off their wealth, silver and gold.

Here in the poorer parts of town, the people have taken anything they can get their hands on, which mostly means broken and bent gears from old machines. She spots necklaces, bracelets, and, on particularly irreverent young women, entire bodices constructed out of little interlocking spokes.

New York, where she’s spent most of her time on the ground in the past decade, looks nothing like this. This is purely Los Angeles, and she doesn’t know if she likes it or not.

Peggy spots the hanging sign she’s looking for, with the wolf outlined against a blood red moon. She changes direction, elbows the man behind her that’s trying to sneak up on her, and steps in through the door.

The shop is quiet and dark after the press of the streets. She side steps a display case full of pretty but ultimately useless gadgets and heads deeper into the building.

The desk in the back is staffed by a woman with bright red hair. Her head is bowed over a ledger, but Peggy knows the woman is wholly aware of her. There’s at least one weapon stowed under the desktop, but if Peggy knows Natasha Romanov at all, it’s more like four weapons and a smoke bomb.

“You need to stop moving around,” Peggy says lightly. “I almost had to knock out some poor bastard before I was able to find this place.”

Natasha raises her head. The corner of her mouth lifts.

“I’m sure the poor bastard deserved it,” she says. Despite living most of her life in Russia, her accent is a Western drawl through and through. Peggy admires her linguistic abilities. “Steve’s upstairs.”

Peggy nods in acknowledgement and starts toward the very back, where she knows the staircase will be. Natasha has very exacting standards when it comes to real estate and, not surprisingly, she always manages to secure what she’s looking for.

“Peggy,” Natasha says. Peggy turns to meet her eyes. “He’s not doing well. And once you’re done, we need to talk.”

It doesn’t sound like she only has their normal supply exchange in mind.

Peggy nods again, squares her shoulders, and sets herself to finding the staircase.

 

* * *

 

She remembers waking up to Steve leaning over her. There’d been soot streaking his face and an ugly scrape down his cheek. His eyes had been red—not just red rimmed, but red all the way through—and it had taken him a few tries before he could say, “Where’s Bucky?”

Peggy hovers just outside the only door on the landing of the third floor, fist raised to knock.

Steve had dragged her out of the wreckage of the _Marvel_ , despite his broken arm, and sat with her until she woke up and the rest of the crew found them.

Last time she’d been in Los Angeles, Steve had refused to see her.

Peggy knocks.

From inside the room, a soft voice says, “Come in.”

She pushes the door open and it’s like entering an entirely different world. The ceiling of the room, which is likely an attic, is high and vaulted, and it’s not as hot in here as she might expect. Windows line the south facing wall, and the room is high enough that the buildings across the street don’t block the light or the sprawling view of the city. A desk sits below them, to best take advantage of the light throughout the day.

And at the desk, hunched over a drawing, is Steve.

His slight shoulders are up by his ears as he draws, oblivious to the fact that his posture now will leave him aching and refusing to complain later in the day. The pencil continues to scratch over the paper as Peggy stands, wordlessly watching him.

She doesn’t step closer and try to pry. She simply clasps one hand loosely around her other wrist and waits.

Eventually, Steve sighs and puts his pencil down. He turns in his seat, one arm drawn up on the back of the chair, and offers her a small smile. It tugs at the scar on his face.

Peggy returns the smile, though hers is a bit wobbly. Relief rushes through her, followed closely by bittersweet sadness. She stops herself from blinking, because she isn’t sure that she’d be able to keep the tears in then.

“Hi Peggy,” he says.

Peggy presses her lips together and swallows. Then she says, “Hello, dear. How have you been?”

   

*

   

After, she climbs back down the two flights of stairs and finds Natasha sitting at the desk with Morita, their heads bowed low over some invention that’s in pieces before them. Natasha isn’t Stark, by any means—there’s no one in the world that’s like Howard Stark—but she’s a genius in her own right. It’s just that her inventions tend to be more subtle and decidedly more deadly than Howard’s.

Morita glances up and catches sight of her. He says something to Natasha that’s too quiet for Peggy to hear, nods to his captain, and disappears toward the front of the store.

Natasha looks up and gestures for Peggy to join her at the desk, in the stool Morita just abandoned.

When she draws closer, she can make out that the thing Morita had been examining was some sort of weapon, small enough to fit in the palm of a woman’s hand but, if she knows Natasha at all, still entirely deadly.

“Planning on selling this one?” Peggy asks her.

Natasha gives a dark laugh. “We both know Pierce doesn’t like patents to be issued if they don’t have his name on them.”

It’s the truth, and a rather unfortunate one at that. Pierce has this city in an intellectual stranglehold, and the Governor respects him too much to do anything about it. Says the man gets results and can do whatever he wants—within reason of course, don’t you know we’re _modern_ men here in California, Ms. Carter—in return.

Incidentally, she didn’t much like the Governor, the one time she met him.

Natasha clears the weapon away and leans her elbows against the desktop. Another woman would sigh or push her hair away from her face, but Natasha has no tells. It’s only through experience with the woman that Peggy knows she’s rattled.

“I have a job for you, if you’re interested,” Natasha tells her, voice low. There’s no one else in here, other than Steve, who’s two stories about their heads, and Morita, who’s standing guard at the door. But it pays to be cautious. Peggy is only peripherally associated with Natasha’s group—the one she, officially, knows nothing about—for the safety and comfort of both parties, but occasionally, Natasha will send something her way that one of her own people can’t handle.

Peggy folds her hands in her lap and picks idly at the grease beneath one fingernail. “I don’t know when I’ll next be here. Knowing Howard, he’ll send me a telegram tomorrow morning saying he has a shipment that needs to be delivered to South America and I’ll spend the next year getting lost in the jungle.”

Natasha huffs out a breath in lieu of a full laugh.

“It’s not that type of job,” she says. Her gaze is heavy and somber when Peggy meets it. “It’s a bounty, of sorts.”

Oh.

Peggy sits back a little. Natasha doesn’t send bounties her way often; she has other contacts that specialize in such things, and she knows that Peggy prefers not to kill, when possible. And many bounties, out past the law of the East, involve death.

Natasha wouldn’t offer it to her without reason, she knows that much.

“Dead or alive?”

“Dead is safer for us all,” Natasha says.

Peggy turns that over in her mind for a moment, until she snags on something else.

“What do you mean by sorts?” she asks, voice as neutral as she can manage.

Natasha does push her hand through her hair, then, and that tells Peggy everything she needs to know.

“It’s not official, for one,” Natasha says. She brings her hands down and presses them flat against the table top, stares at them like they’ll lend her the words she needs. Beneath them, Peggy notices, is a detailed drawing for an intricate prosthetic arm. “He’s assassinating union leaders, taking out picket lines, destroying safe houses. Last month, he single-handedly took out a relief ship headed for one of the reservations. We only know about it because one of our people sent a pixie.”

The pixies are Stark’s latest device for transporting messages; small, with agile steam motors, a dash of magic, and a nigh-impenetrable hull, a pixie is perfect for short range communications. They’re also ridiculously expensive to produce and can only be used once. For someone to use one means that this man, whoever he is, really is a threat to the efforts of Natasha and her group. A broken pickett line happens more often than not, especially violently, but to risk information reaching the wrong ears in order to warn others is worrying.

Natasha continues, “We don’t know who he’s working for, but he’s deadly and his employer must have deep pockets.” A breath. “They’ve been calling him the Clockwork Soldier, because his left arm’s been enhanced or replaced, we’re not sure.”

If he’s that good, how the hell is a crew of six meant to find him and incapacitate him?

Peggy asks as much, her eyes fixed on Natasha’s face.

“Because,” she says, not shying away from Peggy’s stare, “if our information is correct, he’s coming after you next.”

   

*

   

Peggy stares up at the ceiling of her cabin, illuminated only by the light drifting up from the city. The district near the skyport never sleeps and neither, it seems, does she.

She throws back the blanket. Her earlier discussion with Natasha left her uneasy and she doesn’t want to linger here longer than necessary. Someone will be awake for the watch, and it’s completely possible to ready the _Marvelous_ to sail with only two sets of hands.

When she emerges on the deck, something makes her stop while she’s still in the shadows.

It’s too quiet; too still. Peggy can hear the bustle of the port district and the other ships; the wind against the balloon; the creak of the ship’s wood as she settles in the cold of the desert night. But there’s nothing on deck, no sounds of steps on the old boards as Jones paces, no strike of the match as Dernier lights his pipe that’s blown out again. There’s no solid silhouette as Dugan leans against the railing to stare down at the city below.

Nothing.

Peggy eases back against her cabin door, slipping her hand into the open seam on the side of her nightgown. She draws out the prototype Natasha handed her with a wink as she left the shop, then flicks off the safety. It heats up in her hand.

Hairs rise on her arms as she waits for any sound or movement. She wishes she was in pants and wearing boots, she wishes her hair was twisted back from her eyes.

_There._

A glint of metal, so faint and so brief a less observant person might dismiss it as their imagination. Peggy raises the weapon.

He’s in front of her before she can do anything else, fast as a breath. She only sees him in flashes: broad shoulders. Gears shifting. A knife.

She fires.

Even with her eyes closed, the shot burns a path across her eyelids. She opens them to see him stagger back. Her aim is perfect; gears melt, emitting a sharp burst of steam. The man grunts. Shifts the knife to his right hand. The fingers on his left hand flex, stuttering as they move outward.

It won’t slow him down for long, and that was the only shot she’s going to get for the next five minutes. In five minutes, she could be dead.

“Dugan!” Peggy shouts, hoping he wasn’t the one on watch tonight.

She scrambles across the deck. If she can keep out of his reach, she's alive for another few seconds. She calls again, “Dugan!”

The man stalks after her. When she glances over her shoulder, she sees him swing his left arm in a circle; she hears the whine of gears and the hiss of steam. A clunky metal mask is strapped to his face. It can’t be comfortable.

There’s a gun strapped to the rail ahead, she just needs to _get_ there.

Fingers close on her hair and she flies backward. Peggy cries out as the man yanks again, dragging her off of her feet.

She reaches up and scrabbles at the stiff leather of his glove. It’s not his metal hand, it can’t be, she _saw_ the damage she did to that arm.

Someone yells, “Hey, Iron Face!”

An explosion.

The pressure disappears.

Peggy claws her way to her feet and turns. She can’t see the man anyway, only Dugan, standing with his feet planted wide on the deck and wielding a gun as long as his arm and half as wide. She lets her head hang and tangles her fingers in her hair to have something to hold onto as she pants, trying to catch her breath again.

A clunk. Peggy looks up to see Dugan setting the gun down before striding over to her. She gives him a tremulous smile.

“He’s gone, Cap,” Dugan says, eyes hard as he scans the ship. He didn’t manage to grab his hat before rushing up from the hold, and he looks… smaller, without it.

Peggy reaches out and lays her hand on his shoulder. She says, “Thank you, Tim.”

His eyes dart to hers and he nods.

She lets her hand drop and moves to inspect Dugan’s latest weapons acquisition. Up close, it’s absolutely massive, the surface crammed with so many levers and gears she doesn’t know where one is meant to grip it safely.

“Where did you get this?” she asks, careful not to touch anything. It’s too dark now to ensure she won’t hit the wrong button and blow a hole in the side of her ship.

Dugan grunts. “Stark. It’s his latest idea, wanted me to test it out for him.” He glances around again. “I’ll let him know it packs quite a punch.”

Peggy nods. She peers at the gun. It doesn’t surprise her that Stark though this up.

“Who was that, Cap?” Dugan asks.

She glances at him; she can only make out part of his expression.

“I think,” she says, then takes a deep, steadying breath, “that was the man Natasha told me about. The Clockwork Soldier.”

Her breathing has evened out but she’s starting to tremble now, and she needs to get into her cabin before she falls apart.

“Go,” Dugan says. “Gabe was on watch, I’ll check on him.”

She closes her eyes. In the wake of the attack she’d completely forgotten about the missing crewman. Peggy wants to stay and ensure he’s okay, but she can’t lose her tenuous grip on her emotions in front of any of her crew.

If James was here, it would be a different story, but he’s not.

“Get me if there’s anything wrong,” she finally settles on, and Dugan agrees easily. “Then I want you to ready the ship. We’re leaving as soon as possible.”

The others are on deck now, half dressed and still mostly asleep as they clutch various weapons. They hang back so as not to get in their captain’s way. Peggy acknowledges them each in turn, trying not to think of how unbalanced she must look at the moment, before escaping to her cabin.

She closes and locks the door behind her. Her knees give out and she crashes down. Peggy curls in on herself on the floor, struggling for breath.

It was the gunshot, she thinks. That terrible feeling of helplessness, followed by an explosion.

Peggy presses her eyes closed, trying to forget the image of James, his terrified eyes.

There’s a terrible pain in her chest as she sucks in one desperate breath and then another.

This isn’t the _Marvel._  Her ship and her crew are safe. They’re alive and together.

They’re safe.

But how safe is she, how safe are _any_ of them really, when someone like the Soldier is after them? She’d shot him right in the arm, seen the way the metal had contorted, and it had barely slowed him down.

The ship hums to life around her, the engines turned up to maximum power for the first time in nearly a day.

Sleep. She’ll sleep now, and deal with the rest later.

Peggy drags herself to bed and falls into fitful dreams, full of burning airships and mechanical men with scared blue eyes. She doesn’t wake feeling rested.

   

*

   

“Phoenix,” she finally decides, staring down at the map. She doesn’t have any particular reason for choosing the city, other than the fact that she knows Natasha has allies there and she doesn’t think the Soldier will be able to easily follow them. Either he’ll move on foot, horseback, or train, which are all slow and unreliable in the desert, or his employers will allow him the use of an airship. She’s hoping for the former, but the latter will also be useful; they’ll see any ship from miles off, and perhaps they’ll learn something about who he works for.

Beside her, Morita nods and begins to plot out a course. They’ll follow the canals most of the way, but there are spots where a careless captain could get her crew lost.

Peggy leaves him to it, stepping out into the sunlight to check on the rest of the ship.

Falsworth stands lazily at the helm; in the fifteen years that they’ve worked together, she’s never known him to look anything other than lazy. But she also knows that anyone who tries to take advantage of that apparent fact will soon be regretting it.

She stares out at the world unfolding below them. It’s sand, for the most part, and she finds that she hates it just as much as she always has.

It won’t take long to get to Phoenix. Once they’re there and out from under the watchful eye of Alexander Pierce, they can regroup and decide where the ship will sail next.

There’s a meal waiting for her in the small galley, courtesy of Falsworth. Peggy isn’t hungry, but she forces the food down anyway, staring at the far wall as she chews.

She should check on the supplies in the hold; there’s no doubt Dugan did a fine job yesterday while she dealt with Pierce, but it will help steady her if she sees it for herself.

Peggy finishes the last of the food and puts the bowl with the other dishes waiting to be cleaned.

Supplies, she tells herself, then Phoenix. And after that, if they’re lucky, somewhere the Clockwork Soldier won’t be able to reach them. She begins climbing down the ladder into the hold. Something tells her their luck won’t hold against this adversary.

All the better to be prepared, then.

Peggy counts, and begins to plan.

**Author's Note:**

> This is only the beginning. For the sake of both my sanity and the deadline, this fic had to stop here, but it should really be considered 'episode one,' so to speak, of this verse. I'll be sitting in an airport and on a plane for almost all of tomorrow, so hopefully I'll have time to get down some of the ideas floating around in my brain!
> 
> Thank you for reading. Comments and kudos are always appreciated but never required.
> 
> Read on,  
> Skats


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